I’m finally at the point where I need to position my condensate hood and venting.
The hood is 6’ and has an 8" round exhaust riser on the top to which I will reduce to 6" and hook up a vortex fan.
My question is: would it be better to vent out of the room above the hood which would have the least amount of distance travelled or vent out the perpendicular wall, which would allow me to slope the ducting a bit to prevent water from forming and dripping back in.
My other concern is I heard, though have had trouble confirming that if I need a make up air vent (which I may not - our a/c people are calculating the CFM loss vs A/C) it cannot be on the same wall as the vent - I would think a makeup air vent would be best served directly above the kettles in between the kettles and the hood.
Propane? Then your venting two things - moisture and CO2 (exhaust from the burners). The second is much more important the the first as it can kill you. If you’re trying to vent the whole room, then the opposite wall is correct. But for just the brewery space you could change that. Still, I’d position the make up vent below the burners.
Just to make sure we’re all clear. It’s not CO2 he needs to worry about it’s CO (dioxide verses Monoxide). Too much C02 can be a problem but it doesn’t take a lot of CO to become a very big problem.
I would slope the exhuast pipe bc you have to worry about condensation and if you are in a area that gets cold it could freeze and cause alot of damage. When we vent furnace we have a aggressive slope to avoid condensation and the pipes from freezing
1-3 sounds right but another way to look at it is for every foot you go out raise it a 1/4 of a inch for example a 8 foot pipe the end that going outside is 2 inches higher the then the source
hmm - for this application, I would imagine I would want it sloped downward at the exit/wall so that water condensate can drip out the vent, rather than running back into the fan or even the hood opening itself?
Yeah probably I am speaking from experience with furnace but they have built in drains. The theory is that the condensation stays in the condition air space and does not freeze and cause a blockage in the pipe.
good question tom - but yes, I’ve decided on the 6" vortex fan since it has a max CFM of 449 (which I am adding a control to lower when full power not needed) but the 8" has a max of 747 CFM which is considerably higher than what I need. I can of course mod it with a controller - I’m not dead set yet, but being that the room is A/C’d, I want to be cautious of how much air is being sucked out.
Just a speculation but if you have enough air flow you should not form condensation.
What fan are you using?
I have 6" pipe and 250 CFM and that is not enough.